January 05, 2006

Little Goats Barked

TERRY "TK" FOLGER was an eccentric misanthrope, and one of WFMU's more mentally unhinged staffers. As a personality profile, these characteristics imply that TKF (by which he self-identified) was fun, when he wasn't self-destructive, and could be an unforgettable programmer, when not jeopardizing the station's license.

He arrived here around 1982. He would never have made it to WFMU had he not been a suicidal failure. In 1981, distraught over the murder of a Beatle, Folger leapt from the roof of the Chelsea Hotel, but miraculously wasn't united with his hero. What the 23rd Street pavement couldn't claim, AIDS did in April 1994, his infection reportedly traced to a contaminated blood transfusion. TKF was one of two staffers to die of immune deficiency syndrome just months apart (Val Sebastiano passed away in late 1993).

In his radio twilight, probably early '94, when his illness -- or meds -- triggered dementia, Folger spent a half-hour of late-night airtime haranguing listeners to send him drugs -- any drugs. "Haranguing" is euphemistic for screaming, pleading, cursing, and venting -- a tsunami of agitation. I heard the rant. It was shocking -- all the more so because his insistence was genuine. Folger had courted radio brinksmanship before; this time, he spiraled into the abyss. A suspension followed, largely for his own good, after which he quit or was dismissed. Don't know if there's a tape of his me-want-drugs tantrum, but audio exists of another legendary TKF debacle.

It was December 18, 1983 (the date scribbled on an archival cassette J-card). Terry was hosting an afternoon fill-in at our East Orange studios, in the basement of Upsala College's Froeberg Hall dorm. I was home in South Orange, probably otherwise preoccupied, the radio percolating in the background. I barely noticed an interview in progress, interspersed with vapid rock tracks. I didn't recognize the DJ, and assumed it was a rookie. I figured Terry's shift had ended earlier.

The phone rang. It was TKF, and he needed help.

Check that -- he didn't need help. At least he wasn't calling for any. He just wanted to tell someone what was going on.

In the main studio, a small bulb near the mixing console lit up if a visitor was at the front door. Terry explained that the bulb had been blinking incessantly, as if someone was pulsing the button. Folger, who was alone on the premises, opened the door and was confronted with a four- or five-member band and their manager. They were called Tallowcross, and explained they'd been booked for an interview with the regular host of that slot. Folger knew nothing about it. He apologized, said he was busy, and discouraged the band from assuming that any such prior commitment was his responsibility. The band persisted; they'd traveled to East Orange for an interview, and weren't leaving. Folger, who could be stubborn and volatile, was within his rights to refuse the band admittance. An argument ensued. Probably a prolonged argument. Finally, disgusted with the futility of the situation, and outnumbered, Folger opened the door and ushered Tallowcross into the main studio. He switched on the air microphones -- then walked out.

The band was momentarily confused -- but not their manager, who quickly assumed the role of host/interviewer. This idiocy had been underway for a while when Folger called me. When I understood what was going on, I slapped in a cassette and captured part of the program. It might be the most moronic thing ever aired on the station. These addle-brained cretins rambled on about nothing of any consequence to anyone beyond their imaginary groupies, as the conversation swerved between boring and soporific. How insubstantial was the chit-chat? It was the broadcast equivalent of Lo-Fat Twinkies. Imagine a food product made out of crap -- and they remove the crap. What's left? If only the band's manager had figured out the phones and taken on-air questions from listeners. I had a few: Were they congenital assholes, or did it take years of diligence? Could I grow up and be like them if I spent ten hours a week huffing chemical solvents in a closed space? Does this interview have an expiration date?

Every ten minutes they exhaled long enough to hawk product, treating the ever-dwindling audience to their uni-testicled rock. Don't remember what Tallowcross sounded like, except they used more chords than Jandek. Two more, I think.

They blathered. Stupidity on parade. You'd think it had been, to that point, the band's pinnacle of celebrity.

In retrospect, you'd be right. They don't even merit a Google hit. Their historical footprint consists of this four-and-a-half-minute excerpt (MP3 for download), transferred from the original C90, the only keepsake one needs of these witless pinheads.

Irwin, thanks for the post; not nearly enough is said about Terry when it comes to WFMU history. His music choices and unpredictable mic style were a joy to experience. In fact, I sorely miss the (potential) mayhem of the pre-Jersey City days of the station, not only from Terry's show, but a whole host of others as well.

I believe Terry's telling of the night of his jump from the Chelsea roof would vary slightly depending on his mood and who was listening. I recall that he was with his oldest and dearest friends Joe and Jack, and that a lot of alcohol was also involved. I always got the feeling that his jump was more a spontaneous act of drunken despair, as opposed to anything pre-meditated. Whether or not it was directly related to his distress over Lennon's murder is questionable; regardless, Terry struggled with depression his whole life.

It's also worth noting that Terry was filling in for Frank Balesteri (aka Vanilla Bean) that night, another dearly departed (and boundary-pushing) WFMU air personality. Frank had set up the interview with the band, and then, perhaps absentmindedly (perhaps not), got Terry to fill in, leaving him to deal with the moronic rockers, who apparently were flinging themselves bodily against the door of the station before Terry finally let them in. To those of us who knew them, this incident was as much "classic Frank" as it was "classic Terry."

After hearing this idiocy I am moved to wonder whether surrendering the studio to these bozos was the only option Terry had at his disposal in order to avoid facing his second potential meeting with his maker in as many years; these guys sound borderline-psychotic and for all we know could well have threatened him with cement sneakers had he not relented. Only Terry himself knew for sure, no doubt, and if any of the members of Shallowcross (sic) are still out there, I wouldn't trust them to tell the truth about what really went down even with a lie detector strapped to them or a gun pressed to their heads.

Thanks, Irwin, for sharing this and for bringing up the good name and memory of Terry, and yes, William, you are very correct about the notion that he doesn't get half the recognition he deserves for his contributions to WFMU and to the lives of all he knew, including my own. He may have had his emotional baggage, but even through all his pain he succeeded in giving us so much joy, so much of it.

Hey,
My name is Rob Dwyer, I met TKF as a messenger at Aztec Document Systems
in New York. We spent alot of time together and he made alot of tapes of
stuff I had never heard, I was a hick from Maine I had no clue.
He didn't talk much about the Chelsea hotel thing, I think he was pretty
genuinely upset about John Lennons death, but their were some immense
issues involved beyond substance abuse, he was a pretty thoughtful person
if he trusted you enough to confide in you, new york was a place he loved
and hated on alot of different levels. We mostly talked about girls back then,
and music, and New York. We did alot of talking. When he told me he
had AIDS I don't think it registered at first, but as his illness got worse
it was apparent. I had to visit him at Saint Vincents a couple of times
and that was an experience I was familiar with myself. I remember him
telling me " I have to get away from these Nazis" he would call my answering
machine then and leave 20 messages. I thought it was a joke. It wasn't.
He was perched on the edge of a knife most of the time I knew him. But
I remember him being funny as hell walking around the village in that TKF stride
I used to call it.
Now it is 15 years later and I downloaded Coney Island Baby on my ipod
and I have been having massive flashbacks of those days in the village.
That was when it had some clubs and not Taco Bells on 4th street.
Roaming with Folger. I'll never forget him I miss him alot. He was underneath
all that superficial bullshit a hell of a nice guy.

I am the aforementioned Terry Folger's best buddy Joe, referred to in Bill Berger's post above. I was thinking about him today and Googled his name for the hell of it, and I came upon this WFMU blog with entries from people I used to know through Terry like Irwin, Bill, Ray Brazen (nee Zinnbran) and Robbie Dwyer. It's nice to hear from you guys and also good to know that you still think about TKF too, all these years later.

Regarding his jump off the Chelsea Hotel, it happened on the afternoon or early evening of Wednesday, December 10th, 1980. I remember the date clearly because John Lennon had been assassinated on the night of Monday the 8th, and the talk at Bayonne High School the next day (where Terry and I were both in the 12th grade) was about nothing but Lennon. A bunch of us decided to play hooky from school on Wednesday the 10th and have a John Lennon party. Terry and I traveled together that morning to one guy's house, armed with a bunch of our favorite Beatles/Lennon albums (I remember he brought "Live Peace in Toronto"). We listened to Lennon's music for hours. Around lunchtime we were all pretty shitfaced, and in my drunken haze I lost track of Terry. When some others and I left the party to go back home and sleep it off, somebody found a suicide note posted on the front door. I knew immediately who left the note. I don't remember much about the note except that it said something to the effect that Lennon's death was the final straw for him. I do remember shrugging it off and thinking it was all a fiendish prank.

Terry was indeed an "eccentric misanthrope" and also a profoundly self-destructive person. But despite the evidence of my own eyes, I still never thought he would actually try to kill himself. While I do think that Lennon's death served as a trigger, it's pretty obvious to me in retrospect that he was suicidally depressed for a long while before that.

Anyway, he told me later that he chose the Chelsea because of Sid Vicious. Apparently he went to the top and jumped out a side or back window, but hit some kind of awning on a lower floor, which broke his fall just enough to save his life. Still, he was pretty banged up afterward: broken pelvis, broken collarbone, etc. He was laid up in St. Vincent's Hospital for the better part of a month recovering from his wounds.

Ray, do you still have the video you shot at Terry's memorial service back in May 1994? I presided over that incredibly moving and upbeat affair, which I remember fondly as one of the greatest days of my life, and I would kill to get a copy of the video you shot. (Not having a camcorder, I could only audiotape the proceedings that day.) Among many other highlights, I remember Ken Freedman's wonderful speech about the anarchic spirit that Terry brought to his radio work and how it was so emblematic of WFMU's "free form" ethos. Please contact me at basile@thirteen.org or by phone at (212) 560-2944 if you still have that tape. And if anyone else wants to contact me and share memories of Terry, I'd welcome that too.

I am one of terry's older brothers.I love hearing all the different stories about him and really miss him a lot. As Joe Basile said, I would also love to see any video of the memorial service that was held after his death. Terry had a whole different life that all of his family knew nothing about. I loved hearing his friends tell stories that day and if anyone has a copy ,i would appreciate it.Thanks.

I'm a friend of Terry's named Sari.
We used to go out together to see stuff sometimes. While most of our friends only wanted to see bands, Terry wasn't afraid to go out to see experimental theater,
weird performance art, improvised music, even dance.
He was somehow more well rounded than the rest of our rock centric friends, and I really liked his company.
I spent a lot of time at the hospital where his girlfriend Margaret worked really,really hard to make it less suck.
Even so, It was unbelievably awful.
Mercifully,Terry's mind checked out sooner than his body.
I hope this gets to her somehow because she was a real hero.

There is a myspace for Van Gelder. Here is the link: http://www.myspace.com/tkfvangelder
There are 8 songs up and two more on the way.
The Myspace is a tribute to him. He had a profound effect on my life. TFK had a relaxed way about him, but with an edge of witty cynicism. He had mystique. He embodied the spirit of old time WFMU in it’s heyday.
He was an eccentric and energetic musician and natural broadcaster and a very good friend .
Thanks Irwin for sharing this story.And Wm. And Sari and Joe for writing too.
Everyone feel free to write in the comment section on the Van Gelder Myspace.